Missing Persons

by Stephen White

  He sighed. “You were about to say something else. You said, ‘even’ and you stopped. Even what?”

  “Everything.” Lame, but it was the best that I could do. “I was talking about everything.”

  Sam yawned. “You know something else, right? Don’t you? Something you can’t tell me?”

  I didn’t hesitate. I said, “I do.”

  “Fuck,” he muttered. “What’s the point in talking to you about stuff like this? It’s all riddles. It’s like trying to get a politician to tell you what he really thinks.” I took some solace that Sam’s profanity had been mumbled and dull, and not sharply carved and poison-tipped. “I can’t start an investigation because you have some confidentiality bee in your butt, Alan. You know that. You do. We’ve been here before.”

  “What about the snow thing?”

  “Dear Lord, not the snow thing again.”

  “Have you guys thought about those lines that you can string between trees and stuff? What are they called? What if they strung those between Mallory’s house and Doyle’s? What if they did that? What if that’s how she got out of her house without leaving any footprints?”

  “A patient feed you this? She slid down one of those lines? That’s your latest theory? Are you nuts?”

  Hearing it out loud, it sounded silly. All I was able to say was, “No. Maybe.” Sam had no way to know I’d answered his questions in order, skipping the second one and the final one.

  “Why?” Sam asked.

  “Why what?”

  “If she’s running away, why would she care if she got out of the house without leaving any footprints? Why go to all that trouble? She didn’t know when the snow was going to start and stop; she didn’t know Fox was going to have a helicopter overhead. She’s a kid. If she runs, she runs. Everything else is crap and you know it.”

  I hadn’t thought of questioning what motivation Mallory might have for trying to leave no trail behind-it was definitely an oversight in my thinking-but I found myself relieved that Sam was using the present tense to describe Mallory.

  Sam wasn’t done. “Before, you said, ‘They’? Who’s ‘they’?”

  “The neighbor and…”

  “Mallory? Come on? They were in this together? Now you’re talking some conspiracy, right? Alan, I’ll forgive you for calling. It’s late. I know you’re upset about your friend.”

  “Sam-”

  “We searched the house. We talked to the neighbor. Nothing came of it. Let it go.”

  “Remember when we were in the yard and someone was watching us from the upstairs window?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Well, why? Why was he watching us?”

  “He?”

  Sam was sharper three minutes after being woken from a sound sleep than I was at the end of a long day. “Has to be a he, right? It’s only Bill and his son who live there.”

  “The Millers aren’t allowed to have guests? I didn’t know that. Boulder and its laws? Wouldn’t want to be a cop here-be arresting people for farting on the wrong side of the street.”

  We’d moved from amused incredulity to aggravated sarcasm. Where Sam was concerned, that wasn’t a healthy progression. With some defensiveness creeping into my voice, I said, “I think it was a he.”

  “Then what did you mean when you asked ‘why?’ What’s the big deal about somebody watching you from his own bedroom window? Maybe it was a neighborhood watch thing and Bill Miller’s the block captain. Who the hell knows? It’s not a crime to spy on your neighbor’s yard. We’d have to arrest half the old ladies in town if it was.”

  “Did you talk to the neighbor yourself, Sam? You or Lucy?”

  He forced patience into his voice. It was a tight fit. “Lucy and I were doing other things. You know that.”

  “It was Slocum, wasn’t it?”

  “Your point?”

  “Talk to the neighbor yourself, please. I don’t trust Slocum.”

  “I thought Jaris behaved himself tonight.”

  “Barely. He was nervous. And you and Darrell were watching everything he did. I still don’t trust him.”

  The silence that ensued suggested to me that Sam was considering saying something else about Jaris Slocum. He didn’t. He said, “You talk about this Camaro guy as though he’s a victim. You considered that he may be mixed up in all this, like criminally?”

  “It doesn’t fit,” I said. “Psychologically.”

  “And in your world people never act out of character?”

  Sam actually asked that question with only the slightest hint of sarcasm. “Talk to the neighbor, Sam.”

  “On what pretense do I do that?” he asked.

  “You’re looking for that Camaro. You wanted a hook? That’s your hook. Now that the BOLO is out, you want to tie up a loose end. Slocum himself said he didn’t know about the Camaro during the first interview. You just have to make a call, one call, maybe go have a chat with the guy who owns the house and the garage.”

  Ten minutes later I crawled into bed and sprawled on my side, facing my wife. Silently, Lauren backed toward me until I could feel the warmth from her nighttime flesh on the front of my naked thighs. I’d almost drifted off to sleep when a fresh thought forced me to snap open my eyes in the dark.

  Maybe the secret has to do with Rachel Miller, not with Mallory.

  Maybe this is all about Rachel.

  That’s why Diane disappeared.

  She knew something about Rachel. Or she was about to learn something about Rachel.

  I climbed back out of bed, pulled on a pair of sweats, and used the kitchen phone to warn Raoul that when he’d walked into the Love In Las Vegas Wedding Chapel and met Reverend Howie he may have inadvertently walked into something that was extremely dangerous.

  But Raoul didn’t answer his hotel room phone at the Venetian.

  He didn’t answer his cell, either.

  My next thought? Sam was going to kill me when I tried to explain Canada to him.

  47

  All I told Bill Miller on the phone was that I had some further questions that I needed to address before I could make a commitment to see him for ongoing psychotherapy. He readily agreed to come in on Friday morning. I never quite decided how surprised I was that Bill was so accommodating about meeting with me again on such short notice. My indecision, I was sure, was a product of the fact that more than twelve hours had passed and I still hadn’t been able to track down Raoul in Las Vegas.

  Lauren shared my dismay about Raoul’s silence. The look she’d given me that morning when I slowed her down on the way to the bathroom to let her know Raoul wasn’t answering his phone was like the look I might expect after I’d told her I’d not only lost my car keys but also managed to misplace the spare set, too. “Diane and Raoul?” she’d said, finally. Before shutting the bathroom door behind her, she’d added, “Find him, honey. Today would be good.”

  Bill settled into the chair across from me and without any visible indications of concern, said, “Shoot. I’m ready. Ask your questions. I’d love to get this whole thing settled.”

  In typical shrink form, my question wasn’t really just a question. “Thanks for being so flexible,” I said. “I’d like to know more about your current relationship with your-is it ex-wife?-Rachel.”

  “Well,” he said, sitting back on the chair. “I didn’t expect that one.” He wasted a moment picking at the crease on his perfectly pressed trousers.

  I, of course, grew curious about what question he had expected. But I didn’t ask him that. I waited.

  “Rachel and I are separated, not… divorced. For some reason, I thought you knew that. I feel like I don’t have any secrets anymore. We never went through the whole legal process. It just never felt… necessary to me. Or even appropriate. Given her difficulties, I couldn’t just… You know the circumstances back then as well as anyone.”

  Actually, not as well as Mary Black, I thought. “Are you legally separated?”

  Bill struggled to find the r
ight word before he settled on “Rachel is my wife.”

  “And the nature of your current relationship?”

  He shifted on his chair, crossing his legs, left ankle over right knee. He took a moment to make certain that his cuff was adequately shading the top of his sock. I wasn’t sure he was going to answer my question at all, but he finally said, “Rachel’s in Las Vegas, still attending weddings, still delusional, still… psychotic. Sadly, that hasn’t changed.” He paused. “She moved there for the weddings. I’m sure you could have guessed that even if you hadn’t heard about it. She still feels compelled to… There’s no shortage of weddings in Las Vegas, that’s for sure.”

  Yes, I know. I know a lot about Reverend Howie and the Love In Las Vegas Wedding Chapel.

  “And she’s still suffering, that hasn’t changed. She’s still struggling with her illness, and… and with the medicines. She hates the medicines. She hates the new ones as much as she hated the old ones. Sometimes she takes them, more often she doesn’t. They help when she takes them, but they don’t solve anything. They’re not a cure, not for her.” He exhaled through pursed lips. “I hope you don’t mind if I ask, but why is this important?”

  I went into a matter-of-fact spiel about a psychologist’s ethical burden to avoid dual relationships, and explained that it would be difficult for me, as a psychotherapist, to avoid them if I didn’t even know they existed. My explanation was intentionally convoluted, but Bill seemed to buy it. I’d figured he would.

  I’d counted on the fact that he would. My voice as level as a freshly plumbed door, I said, “Bill, you still haven’t told me about your current relationship with Rachel. That’s the part that most concerns me.”

  I thought his eyes narrowed at my use of the word “concerns.” Maybe not. I wished I’d said “interests.”

  “Well,” he said, “that’s not exactly true, I said that…”

  Bill’s apparent predilection was to argue the point with me, but he changed his mind and seemed to decide that my statement was, in fact, accurate enough that he’d leave it alone.

  “We’re in touch,” he said. “If you can call it that.”

  No problem, I’ll call it that. “Go on,” I said.

  “We talk about once a week. That’s not true. I call Rachel once a week, but we probably only talk about twice a month.” He exhaled hard and grimaced. “She doesn’t call me… often. Sometimes I leave messages. And the truth is that even when I do reach her, I do most of the talking. I fill her in on what’s going on here, with the family.

  “She’s, um… I still think that… You know, hope’s not really the right word. But I have… I pray for…”

  I watched fascinated as Bill’s usual unshakable composure disintegrated before my eyes.

  “Yes,” I said, nudging him on.

  “Rachel always asks about the kids. Almost always, anyway. So often she’s off in a different… you know. Her mind is in other places. The weddings. The brides, the grooms. Their families. It’s always like she knows them, and that I know them, too. But usually she gets around to asking how the kids are doing, seems interested in what’s going on with them. They don’t get any older for her. They don’t age. I don’t know what else… to say.”

  Although I would have preferred that Bill keep talking on his own without any prompting from me, I decided to go ahead and ask the money question-literally and figuratively. “Do you still support her, Bill? I mean financially? How does she make ends meet? Given what you’re describing right now, I can’t see how she would be able to make a living, or even survive on public assistance.”

  “Well…” he said, flustered by my latest query. “I didn’t think we were going to talk about this today. I don’t see how it has much to do with your… ethical concerns.”

  I waited. Why? I couldn’t think of a thing to say.

  “I pay the bills,” he said, sounding defiant. “I pay the bills. It’s something I want to do, I choose to do. I feel a… responsibility to her. On our wedding day, I said ‘till death do us part’ and I meant it. My love for Rachel didn’t end when she got sick. It didn’t end when she decided she needed to live someplace where she could be closer to more weddings. I take my vows seriously. So, yes, I support her.”

  Was there a little self-righteousness in his tone? Yes, there was. But the reality was that what Bill had been doing for his wife for almost a decade was extraordinary. Not too many men in the same circumstances would have done it. I was touched by his compassion and commitment.

  “That must be a difficult burden for you,” I said.

  “I don’t look at it that way. Not financially, anyway. Emotionally, yes-it’s hard. I miss… having my wife. There’s been a hole in my heart since she left me. But financially? I look at it that… it’s our money, Rachel’s and mine, and that she needs some of it to live. That’s all. Truth be told, I spend more of it than she does. I don’t love her any less because she’s ill. I tell myself that it could be worse.”

  She could have cancer, I thought, ironically. Hoho.

  Again, I waited.

  “You can’t tell anybody about this, right? I’ve never… admitted to anyone that I still support Rachel. I’m not sure people would understand.”

  Understand? What, that you’re a saint? Why is that such a secret?

  “I can’t divulge what you’ve told me, Bill. I won’t tell anyone that you support Rachel.”

  “Good.”

  “Do the kids know?”

  He hesitated before he said, “No. They know I love their mother. That’s all they need to know.”

  I considered the hesitation. What was that about? Why would he lie about that?

  I couldn’t rationalize my follow-up question therapeutically. I knew I couldn’t, so I didn’t even try. But I asked it anyway. “How expensive is it? To support someone in Rachel’s circumstances? It must be a severe burden.”

  He didn’t stumble over the question. “Of course it is. It helps a lot that she’s still on my health insurance. Frankly, that’s one reason why I would never-even if I felt differently-why I’d never go ahead with a divorce. If we were divorced, Rachel would have to rely on public health. That would be a… tragedy for her. The medicine alone… The occasional hospitalizations… The ER visits?”

  Bill looked to me for an acknowledgment. I said, “I can only imagine.”

  He sighed. “She has an apartment in Vegas, a small one, but it’s a nice place in a decent neighborhood. I pay… a caretaker… to look in on her, make sure she has food, has decent clothes, is clean, you know. And I provide what she needs for… the weddings. Dresses, gifts. She’s generous-you know that. I don’t want her to be living in filth or out on the street. I want my wife to be comfortable, and to be safe.”

  I almost said, “A caretaker?” but I didn’t. I was wondering if Canada was Bill’s idea of a caretaker for his schizophrenic wife. Instead, I refocused on the budgetary arithmetic. I said, “It must add up.”

  “It does,” he said. I thought he was going to say something else, but he stopped.

  While I waited for him to resume, I revisited the math. Supporting Rachel the way that Bill described must be costing him two, three, maybe even four thousand dollars a month, depending on housing, medical, and pharmacy costs. I figured twenty-five to fifty thousand dollars a year. A lot of money.

  If I added that amount to the amount that Reverend Howie told Raoul that Canada was paying him so that Rachel could attend weddings-I figured it was probably a similar amount, actually, another twenty-five to fifty thousand dollars a year-we were talking big money. Potentially very big money, since Canada was probably keeping an additional cut for his services. My gut instinct said that the total, fifty to a hundred thousand dollars annually, had to be more than someone in Bill Miller’s circumstances could afford.

  Especially since we were talking after-tax dollars.

  Bill tried to explain how he handled his generous allowance to his wife. “I make a good living. Th
e company’s been good to me over the years. My career’s gone well. It would be better if I could make this living in Nevada, but I can’t. I consider myself fortunate. The kids and I cut some corners. We live simply. We manage. My car’s a lot older than yours.”

  Bill had noticed my car? That gave me a little chill.

  “Rachel’s not in treatment?” I asked.

  “She’s not interested.”

  “And you don’t use a home health care agency?”

  “We’ve tried, but Rachel can be… difficult to deal with. Over the years, I’ve pieced something together, some… services that seem to work out. They meet her needs.” He smiled at me, just a little sheepish grin. “Is that it? Is that all that you needed to know?”

  “No,” I said. “I have one more question. It’s similar to the first one I asked.”

  “Shoot.”

  “What is the nature of your relationship with the man who owns the house next door to yours?”

  He nodded. “Doyle?”

  I immediately knew that he’d been ready for that question; it was the one he’d been expecting from me all along. It wasn’t too surprising; Bill had twice spied me loitering on Doyle’s property. But I didn’t want to divulge the fact that I knew the name of the house’s owner, so I asked, “He owns the house to the north of yours?”

  “Yeah, that’s Doyle. I barely know him.”

  “Barely?”

  “We were neighbors for… almost four years. But we weren’t close. He’s a loner, a single guy. He kept to himself. He’d be outside working; we’d say hi. That sort of thing. He invited me over once to look at his new waterfall, and his pond. Impressive. That’s probably the most time we ever spent together. He moved away before Thanksgiving, maybe even before Halloween. The house is vacant. But you know that.”

  I noted the dig, but didn’t bite. “When’s the last time you spoke with him?”

  “I’m having trouble understanding why that is any of your business.”

  Although I knew that the reason Bill Miller was having trouble understanding why it was any of my business was because it wasn’t any of my business, I reiterated my dual-relationship concerns. Not too surprisingly, Bill seemed less satisfied by my explanation than he had been the first time.